The "I Hate My Job" Thread

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Boris13c
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Otis Day wrote:any others still hating on their job?

:wave:

our organization has been going through a "re-organization" for over 2 years now ... in principle, and on paper, the plans seem actually decent ... some common sense realignments and others that will be unique, but I can see where there are benefits ... and the kickoff presentation was actually pretty nice rather than the usual propaganda

but then ... nothing

nothing except people retiring, and vacancies left unfilled ... people working extra to do the work of those who have left as well as their own ... and the reasons for the vacancies being left open is always the nebulous "re-org"

so management took an idea that looked good on paper, had the employees supportive of it, and then have done nothing with it but make things worse while giving (empty) promises of good things to come

it is a real chore just getting up to go in some days ... and it need not be that way ... all we are asking for is some information and a timeline for this plan so we could at least have some hope ... instead, we are left twisting in the winds and every day I can watch a Dilbert comic strip come to life before my eyes
"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things."
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Otis Day
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I had the past 4 days off and alls I could do last night was look at the clock and dread that coming back to work was fast approaching.

I used to like this job, but demands have increased due to the fucked up situation our state is in and the parents have just gotten useless as hell. I have been dealing with this population for 25 yrs and am just fried :sick:

Told one of the supervisors the other day (who was trying to talk me into going for a pending sup. job) that I wanted the hell out. I think she was quite surprised. The raise would not amount to shit.
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That sucks, dude.

I can't complain about my job. I basically curate BFO for 3-4 hours a night, do photoshop, watch netflix, and fuck around on the internet while listening to music.

That's the benefit of working 3rd shift. It's slow and I work alone. Unfortunately when something screws up I have to wake people up at 4am and they're...not happy about it.
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Xee
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What do you do UOK?

I quit my part-time retail job a few months back, which I'd held for 13+ years, to focus on finishing my masters and study for the CPA. I've had probably 6 or 7 interviews over the course of college but don't think I was really ever prepared enough for any of them so I never got any second interviews. My last chance to get something will be an accounting fair in October. If I can't land anything there I'm going to join the legions of graduates walking around looking for work with college degrees and no related work-experience. Scares the shit out of me.
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wab
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I have a pretty sweet gig. I set my own hours, have an amazing boss...have pretty much complete span of control over my work. It's nice. The job is hard and stressful, but overall it's a good deal.
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I got lucky, had a couple references at WolframAlpha who were able to land me a job as their website monitor for overnights.

The job has no future and chances are excellent I could work 3rd shift here for 20 years, but it's very static. I don't feel like I do anything either, there's no fulfillment at all in it. Just a lazy-ass job.
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I guess I'll jump into this 3.5 year old thread. Overall l like my job. I work in a Safeway seafood department. Any assholes/bitches in the store work on the other side of the store so my contact with them is minimal, and none of them are in charge of me. The people that do work in my department are either cool and amusing, or quiet and dont bother me.

The bad? I could have done this job out of high school, but instead im doing it almost 4 years after college. Its barely above minimum wage. I've got no work experience outside of retail grocery jobs, and I cant seem to find an employer who could GAF about my degree... they want "minimum 5 years experience" in whatever the job happens to be. So what can I do? Just sit in this job, wait for something to open... apply, receive my rejection for lack of experience, and try again next time is what it seems to be.

Anyway, back to one other bad thing about the job: annoying customers. The worst ones seem to want professional chef advice from the guy who barely exceeds 9 bucks an hour. And Safeway requires me to fake it to them. Not allowed to say "I dont know... I just wrap up fish and put a sticker on it." I've managed to fake my way so far, but it is annoying.
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UOK
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KOP_Snake wrote: The bad? I could have done this job out of high school, but instead im doing it almost 4 years after college. Its barely above minimum wage. I've got no work experience outside of retail grocery jobs, and I cant seem to find an employer who could GAF about my degree... they want "minimum 5 years experience" in whatever the job happens to be. So what can I do?
I was just talking about this with a friend. There's never been a time in this country's history where a college degree means less. This catch-22 shit employers play is unfathomably stupid: they want you to have the degree/qualifications, but don't want you to be so qualified that they have to pay you a fair wage.

When I was living up in Oak Lawn I was practically begging for jobs and couldn't get dick. I guarantee that a bunch of bumasses that barely had GED's got hired over me because of some tax benefit and places like Target and GameStop being freaked out that I had a BA. I ended up getting only one callback from a factory an hour away that was literally nothing but non-english speaking people, and via a fucking temp agency.

Don't get me wrong, I've gotten work through a temp agency before when I was in school, but like many of you and others, I shouldn't have to beg for a job when I've completed 4+ years of college education. Unfortunately for us, even if the job market is "coming back," employers are still going to perpetuate clinging to the bottom line and cry "government" when they won't hire.

Stupid bullshit. This country pisses me off so goddamn bad sometimes.

(notice I didn't say "the president." I'm not opening this up to a partisan politics argument, I just feel like we as a nation have the most ass backwards mindset for our size and wealth)
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Boris13c
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the biggest failure of the United States in relation to having a solid career based workforce was the elimination of apprenticeship programs (not to be confused with this intern bullshit)

people who signed up would be taught a trade ... an actual useful career vocation ... the pay was lousy as an apprentice but a certified apprentice could then become a much sought commodity and have a nice long career

2 of my uncles went this route, 1 an electrician and 1 a plumber ... I used them for my sources for a term paper on the subject back in high school ... and even then there were few if any apprentice opportunities available, so none would have been open to me even if I wanted to pursue it

this lack of career oriented training and programs to have a foundation of an actual useful job force is why our country is weak ... jackasses on Wall Street become billionaires but actually do nothing other than gain personal wealth, and those are the assholes people aspire to be ... not a legitimate tradesman

maybe I'm showing my age with this rant, but so be it
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wab
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I really lucked out with my job...I was fresh out of college, living off of my graduation money, holed up in a smelly basement apartment after turning down a job in Chicago at the Merc to move to bloomington-freaking-normal in order to be closer to my girlfriend who was still attending ISU. (She turned out to be my wife, so, silver lining. I guess.)

Anyway...the day after I had just spent my last graduation dollar on a bean burrito, I walked into the employment office of the largest insuracne company in the world. I mean, who doesn't just walk into the employment office of a Fortune 50 company and walk out with a 6 figure salary. Or so I thought...

So, i took the typing test, answered a few questions about myself, previous work history (construction and a sales job at the mall). peed in a cup and went on out the door with a "we'll call you if we have anything come up" pat on the back.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was qualified to work there. I was a double major in finance and economics, with a minor in Latin (long story). But I expected almost nothing after talking to the HR rep...

About a week later I'm sitting there, broke, playing Silent Hill in the dark on my PS1...and the phone rings. Boom, it's them. They'd like to offer me a position. I'm jacked up. I'm already decorating my office in my head...wondering where I will put the wet bar and hoping I'll have every other friday off so I can count my money.

Wrong. It's a job offer to file claim paperwork. WTF? I think to myself...I just attended a fairly prestigious liberal arts school, hold a top notch degree, gradutated with a 3.5GPA. And you want me to file paperwork all day...and you want to pay me $16,200??

I tell the nice lady that I appreciate her call and that I will have to weigh my options, and ask if I can call her back by the end of the week. She says, sure, but you are the 3rd person I've called about this position, the other two already accepted jobs elswhere, and after I hang up with you, I have 4 more people to call about this same position. If it's still open at the end of the week, and you still want it, you can have it.

I ask her to hold on a sec. I think to myself, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be a highly sought after college graduate. I mean, that's what all the brochures from all those job fairs said I would be!

So, I swallowed my pride and figured the 16k was more than the 0k I was making and sheepishly accepted the offer.

12 years and several promotions later, and I'm in charge of multimillion dollar projects, have a team of great employess working for me, and really ended up loving this gig.

So - there was a point to this, but I think I lost it at the Silent Hill reference.
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Boris13c
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wab wrote:So - there was a point to this, but I think I lost it at the Silent Hill reference.

those fucking nurses creeped me out the most

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"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things."
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wab wrote:I ask her to hold on a sec. I think to myself, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be a highly sought after college graduate. I mean, that's what all the brochures from all those job fairs said I would be!

So, I swallowed my pride and figured the 16k was more than the 0k I was making and sheepishly accepted the offer.
I get emails every now and then from my school describing new job/internship opportunities. The other day I got one talking about a summer internship for the IRS. Here's the highlights of the drop description:
  • Students are expected to work 20- 40 hours per week
  • A student volunteer is not a Federal employee for any purpose
    other than certain laws including disclosure laws
  • Volunteers do not accrue leave or qualify for any other
    employee benefits.
  • These opportunities don’t have potential for conversion to
    permanent work
  • This internship is unpaid
Wow! You mean I get to do 40 hours of week and get absolutely nothing out of it? Granted, some people may love this for the experience but I guess, even at 30 years-old, I still have the mindset you had, wab. I'm not willing to relegate myself to those kind of "opportunities" until I've exhausted every other.
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Boris13c wrote:the biggest failure of the United States in relation to having a solid career based workforce was the elimination of apprenticeship programs (not to be confused with this intern bullshit)

people who signed up would be taught a trade ... an actual useful career vocation ... the pay was lousy as an apprentice but a certified apprentice could then become a much sought commodity and have a nice long career

2 of my uncles went this route, 1 an electrician and 1 a plumber ... I used them for my sources for a term paper on the subject back in high school ... and even then there were few if any apprentice opportunities available, so none would have been open to me even if I wanted to pursue it

this lack of career oriented training and programs to have a foundation of an actual useful job force is why our country is weak ... jackasses on Wall Street become billionaires but actually do nothing other than gain personal wealth, and those are the assholes people aspire to be ... not a legitimate tradesman

maybe I'm showing my age with this rant, but so be it

Nail.....head!

I'm in estimating/sales, but my fabrication workforce are union sheet metal workers.

We tell our kids their are dumb and/or a failure if they don't go to college and pay for a degree...so they do, and then they can't get a job.

Meanwhile, a young man joins the union and after a 4 year apprenticeship he's a union journeyman pocketing a nice $30 + an hour with pension and benefits.

Don't get me wrong, a college degree is great (and the route I hope my children choose)....I just hate that we discourage youth from pursuing a skilled trade. That we attempt to make them feel 'lesser' for choosing that path.

Yeah, I know the construction market is down, but so is everything else and with the over-saturation of the market with 25 - 30 year olds with 4 year degrees and little experience, employers are just seeing who will take the least for the job and underpaying many of them.
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DaDitka wrote:We tell our kids their are dumb and/or a failure if they don't go to college and pay for a degree...so they do, and then they can't get a job.
I think a major issue is that students think that any bullshit degree will get them a job. They'll major in communications, music, art, etc. without any thought as to what they're going to do with them once they got out of school. If I wanted to do something I enjoyed with no real-world application, I would probably pick something similar. Instead, I picked accounting which, while not exactly a passion of mine, is something I don't mind which has good job security and allows me a very flexible career path.

Case in point, I knew a girl years ago in community college who was going for her degree in Evolutionary Biology. I remember asking her what she planned on doing with it afterwards (teach, research, etc) and she couldn't really give me an answer. I ran into her a couple years later and found out she was now going for her nursing degree because she couldn't find squat with her biology degree.

Lastly, I don't mean to disparage anyone who chooses any of the degrees I mentioned above. It's just that you got to have real expectations of what you can do with that degree. For example, I worked with a guy who wanted to be a marine biologist. He told me about a volunteer opportunity he took when he was younger for the helluva it that convinced him that's what he wanted to do. He then went on to talk at length about what he planned to do and also admitted that there wasn't really any money in it. Last I heard about him he had gotten accepted into a prestigious marine biology program and had moved to Florida to continue his studies.
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[quote="Xee"]
Lastly, I don't mean to disparage anyone who chooses any of the degrees I mentioned above. It's just that you got to have real expectations of what you can do with that degree./quote]


Ding - Ding - Ding!


There are no 'bad' degrees, but there should be different expectations to go along with different degrees
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I got mine in Business management, figuring businesses were looking for people with that sort of degree.
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UOK
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Xee wrote: I think a major issue is that students think that any bullshit degree will get them a job. They'll major in communications.
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My new client, adult, is a Hispanic male who is deaf and only understands written Spanish. Yea I love my job :frustrated:
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Otis Day wrote:My new client, adult, is a Hispanic male who is deaf and only understands written Spanish. Yea I love my job :frustrated:
Google translate helps me out a ton.

No drinko, no rapeo, no drugo.
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my dream job is to be Terry Tate

[video][/video]
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Boris13c
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what is it with managers and quad charts?

ok, I know the importance of having a good project plan and having tools to track the progress ... but those plans and tools need to be used in a useful manner to have any impact

case in point - getting purchase orders and some necessary contract bids in place since about mid January ... we are starting to get bids and we have estimated shipping dates on the equipment ... this morning was a meeting on all of this

apparently a manager put a team together to come up with a project plan and quad chart sometime last month (maybe earlier?) ... these are people from a different group than the one I work with and was the first time I met a couple of them .... so we were told to simply sit and watch the presentations and hold all questions until the presentation was completed

while watching the presentation, I felt like I was living in a Dilbert comic strip

there were dates for completion of equipment installation that show on the chart to be 2 months earlier than the date we have been given for receipt of the equipment ... there were dates for testing and spin-ups that are before the date established for the vendor being hired for that is required to even begin work ... and on and on it went ... so of course, when the show was over, and Ms Perky Breasts asked "any questions?", she was not prepared for the onslaught but I do give her credit for being the only part of the presentation that was useful (sexist comment yes, but she is a knockout) ... but the big negative was the fact her team was working in a vacuum, creating a plan and making up dates based on some pie in the sky projections from their group leader, who never at any time spoke with or even e-mailed anyone in regards to the equipment or required vendor support

so then part 2 of the show begins as the various manager types start arguing with each other ... we worker bees were then dismissed as they stayed

wouldn't be worth mentioning except this has happened before in the past ... multiple times ... one instance even getting a manager fired, though his official announcement of departure was a "hiatus to spend more time with family" ... so you would think at some point a bit of common sense would be liberally applied to these sorts of projects

alas, it is not to be

so they have a nice set of charts and slides, colorfully put together, but mostly useless since not 1 date or projection is correct ... and low and behold the people assembling it all were hired on a 90 day consultant contract so the presentation could be more professional than the actual usable PowerPoint presentations we generally assemble on our own for this purpose

I have a feeling there is going to be another manager on a hiatus soon mainly because the big bosses were part of the meeting this morning ... and the ones dismissing the worker bees while keeping their managers in place as we closed the doors when we left

days like these are just those kind of days where you sit back and wait to see how many clowns exit the clown car this time
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Boris - I've lived that for 20-25 years, on IT projects. I know you know this -but whoever presented that plan without validating it with experts in advance is just inexperienced, or inept.

Regardless... since management certainly wants the project to go forward, someone is going to need to communicate a realistic plan (ideally with options)... "here's what you can get on the SCHEDULE you want (and why)"... and "here's the schedule we need, to deliver WHAT you want (and why, plus assumptions)"... and "here are the RESOURCES we need to give you what you want, when you want (if it is even feasible - usually isn't)".

The way I've learned to operate is to make management make a formal choice to scale back their expectations - and document their decisions for CYA. In my experience, most middle managers are willing to manage expectations upwards if they are well-armed with detail. If your boss isn't willing to speak the truth upwards, run like hell! lol
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Otis Day
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This thread always seems to get bumped when I am having a shitty week. Is it karma or coincidence.

I have to get the hell away from my job or I may go postal (you heard it here, you are all now witnesses).

Deep in the back of my mind, bar ownership is creeping in. Small neighborhood bar closed and is being sold fairly cheap.

Alls I need is $$$$$$$.
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IE wrote:Boris - I've lived that for 20-25 years, on IT projects. I know you know this -but whoever presented that plan without validating it with experts in advance is just inexperienced, or inept.

I vote on inept as this scenario has been repeated across multiple projects over the years ... but only 1 person actually was held accountable and crushed as a result ... there is a "do-over" meeting scheduled for next week on this, but with the same people running it ... maybe this time they will be required to sit and listen before puking out another failed-from-the-start plan?

seems to be a factory somewhere with the Dilbert-esque pointy haired bosses being cranked out to become managers and CIO's ... and once they infiltrate your organization, they never leave
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Good luck. Yeah, you're right - those types are good at three things... saying what management wants to hear, avoiding accountability, and finding a goat.
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Recently a few things have irked me at my job.

Few weeks ago I had to deal with a man using his feces like lotion. It was everywhere. However because he is, not harming himself or others it is, near impossible to get him real help. He will never be normal, but darn it sucks that we can't infringe on his "civil liberties" and get him real help without jumping through hoops.

Tonight I had to deal with a man who raped his son, screaming at me naked about how bad of a person I am. Of course you laugh it off but really? Why does this stuff happen.
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Don't have a clue why it happens but I know it takes special people to work with society's problems.
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Otis Day
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Damn, I can't believe it has been a year since my last post in this thread. Bar ownership fell thru for many reasons. Still dealing with fucking criminals. Burnt out and it is affecting job performance big time. And I really don't give a shit. Since there is a hiring freeze no way they fire me (even though performance not that bad, yet).
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Rusty Trombagent
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i like my job. i'm not the only one i hope.
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